What Are Successful Teaching Methods for Teaching French to First Graders?

Williamson, Cassandra Wellington

This paper is about successful teaching methods for foreign language instruction in the primary grades, with emphasis on French in first grade. One teacher drew on the literature of elementary school second language instruction, and personal experience and ideas to develop a six-lesson instructional unit for first grade French instruction at Cale Elementary in Albemarle County, Virginia The lessons included a variety of activities and forms of formal and informal evaluation. Most of the classroom instruction was recorded on videotape, and lesson plans were evaluated daily. Topics taught included numbers, conversation, feelings, and body parts. Successful classroom teaching techniques included singing songs, drawing to identify body parts, use of the children's own stuffed animals for conversation, use of another stuffed animal for game participation, and activities involving numbers. The teacher was impressed with the students' attention to pronunciation, their interest in story-reading despite a language barrier, and their enthusiasm throughout the unit. The six lesson plans are appended. (MSE)